18 May 2008

I dreamed I was in a movie where I was on a road trip through Mexico, I was sitting in a Mexican cemetery and this little Mexican guy kept trying to kill me with a six shooter, but he only kept blowing off my fingers and hair. Then he clung to the side of the cherry red convertible 1960s Mustang I was driving and I had to do figure-8s to get the g's up enough for him to fly off the car, which he finally did. Then I just drove into the desert until these cops got me and took me into a secret cop facility in the desert. I was just wandering around the cop facility and eventually found this huge hallway with pane glass windows on the side looking over an enormous shimmering pool that was the most blue pool I'd ever seen. As I kept looking at it, I realised it was teeming with great white sharks and there were commandos on a raft in the middle of it. They threw a bunny into the air and a great white shark instantly flew completely out of the water to eat it and I was like, I gotta get out of this facility, but all of a sudden water started pouring into the hallway complete with great white sharks. I knocked out a commando and took his machine gun and started machine gunning the sharks at which point they’d explode. Finally John McCain made a cameo appearance (this is all still a movie) to help me. He said, Hey sonny, lemme see that gun. I'm more high-profile than you and I think I got this, but I had already killed them all and I said, Sorry McCain, this job's finished.

I was on a family vacation in the mountains on a skiing vacation, and John McCain was my father. He was driving the car, but the road became very zig-zag hilly and snowy and we were slamming down a very steep incline with a deep ravine to our right. The car was skidding out and almost slipped into the ravine. I asked if I should get out and push, but John said he had it under control. At a very precarious point, we realized that someone was sabotaging our trip to try and kill us. They had put a detour sign on the road so we would fall into the ravine. The car started to slide uncontrollably and John yelled for us all to jump out, which we did as the car turned into two plastic tubs and slid into the river below. I wanted to take a picture, but was worried about my camera getting wet. We had to swim through snow to the ski lodge, where I scrambled up onto a ledge. There was a girl sitting there with her friends who wouldn't slide over for me to sit. She wouldn't share her blanket and was telling me I needed to leave. She was so annoying. In the end, I realized we hated each other because she was me and there wasn't enough room for the two of us.

In my dream, McCain has lost the election and is walking alone on a tree-lined lane on a well-kept estate, perhaps in Vermont. Why did I even try, what the hell was I thinking? he is thinking. He picks a rose from a rosebed and goes to smell it, when a hornet crawls from the petals and stings him on the lip. He cries out. A crowd of photographers and a bunch of people turn out to be watching. His face turns red as he crumples and throws the flower away, but his composure quickly returns. He shakes his head and manages a slight chuckle at the dawning humour of the situation. He picks up the ruffled flower and attempts to attach it to his lapel. It keeps slipping off, so he gives it one last sniff and then gently lays it down on the flower bed and starts walking away.

McCain is running for President, but he is not a senator from Arizona, he is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He happens to be campaigning in Dallas when it comes out in the news that he had recently arrested for drunk driving in Pennsylvania. He comes to a group of about 20 of us to explain this. The talk was the usual blather we hear when a public figure does something bad. During his talk, I keep interrupting to make awful – but original! – jokes.

After the speech, everyone else left the room, and John and I sat around eating peanuts and having a friendly chat about all the self-righteous nonsense we'd be hearing in the news about the incident.

I was walking in a park on a warm late spring day when I crossed paths with John McCain. I playfully punched him on the shoulder and started telling him about the website I Dream of McCain. I told him that I didn't recognise him from his photo on the site, that he looked really hot in the photo that they used. I explained that I was not supporting him the election, not that I could vote anyways. I kept babbling on and on until an ice cream truck drove by and played its song.

I was riding in a helicopter with John McCain. We had just taken off, when the others aboard the chopper turned out to be hijackers and started to hijack it. We were not very high, perhaps sixty to one hundred feet in altitude, and were above water, perhaps the Potomac. Suddenly, McCain went for the door and jumped. A second helicopter put two rescuers in the water, but McCain was already dead.

05 May 2008

I was staying at a hotel and walked into the lobby, where they told me that John McCain would soon be holding a Q+A session. The crowd was much older than I, and clearly hard-core Republicans. Even though I'm not a McCain supporter, in my dream I liked him and was excited to hear him speak. I was very impressed by his speech and felt that I wanted to help him with the crowd. I raised my hand to ask a question and he called on me. I asked him a tough but fair question about his opinion and voting record on abortion, and I liked his answer. He came around the room shaking hands, and I whispered to him, You'd better watch out, some are trying to paint you as pro-choice and that could lose you a lot of these votes. In my mind, I was trying to help him get elected and giving him inside information.

He dropped my hand and looked at me angrily and said, You need to be excluded! He motioned to security to get me out of the room, and got angrier and angrier. As I was led away I started yelling to the crowd, He's just like Bush! He wants to exclude people! He's no different! He's lying to you! He's excluding me! And I'm pro-life! I was amazed at myself for making such a scene, and a little afraid I'd be arrested, but I felt betrayed and mad and didn't care.

All the dreams!

About Me

I am the author of several books of fiction: How Should a Person Be?, The Middle Stories, Ticknor, a children's book called We Need a Horse, and The Chairs Are Where the People Go, with Misha Glouberman. I am currently working on a book that is still accepting contributors called Women in Clothes. Details at: www.womeninclothes.comwww.sheilaheti.net